


Hold On, We're Going Home

by skivvysupreme



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Hybrids, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 21:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5105660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skivvysupreme/pseuds/skivvysupreme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been a few weeks since kitty!Kurt’s last visit, and Kurt is finally starting to think that he won’t be going home with anyone. But it’s fine. Whatever. He doesn’t need anyone, anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold On, We're Going Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whatstheproblembaby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatstheproblembaby/gifts).



They’ve been dubbed “the problem litter.”

They’re not actually from the same litter, of course, but within the New Directions Hybrid Rescue Facility, they have formed a sort of family while they wait for their permanent homes. Will and Emma have done their best to find good matches, but for one reason or another, it has taken a long time for that day to arrive for each of them. It does happen, slowly, but for a bunch of orphaned, misfit cat hybrids, every day of waiting feels like an eon.

Rachel, shocking all of her mismatched litter-mates, is the first of their group to find a home. Her method of getting prospective owners’ attention—bursting into song at the drop of a hat—hasn’t worked in her favor thus far, because no one looks for a cat hybrid thinking, “Gee, I’d love a really loud companion.” But she keeps at it, and one day, a handsome man in all black strolls in, announces, “Jesse St. James, you’ve heard of me,” and promptly begins singing along with her when he spots her next to the open window. Rachel goes home with him two days later.

Brittany tends to turn off visitors with a litany of oddball questions and a too-much-too-soon approach to physical affection. But she finds her home after she excitedly rubs her face against the beautiful woman in the red dress who asks to meet her, and purrs, “Hi, Santana. You smell like home.” Santana, startled at first, quickly settles into Brittany’s touches, strokes between her ears, and asks, “Miss Pillsbury, where’s the paperwork?”

Quinn, on the other hand… She cries for _days_ when she discovers she’s pregnant, staying curled up with Puck in her den and mewling softly into his chest. He stays by her side, doing his best to support and protect her, but it seems Quinn’s fears are well-founded when visitor after visitor reads her file—or gets a look at her, once several months pass—and decides not to take her. As Quinn gets closer to her due date, she doesn’t even bother with the meet-and-greet area, instead confining herself to her den and waiting until open visiting hours are over. But one day, after a successful meeting with a local teacher looking to settle down with a family, Puck retrieves Quinn from the den, declares them a package deal, and refuses to leave without her. Ms. Corcoran looks down at Quinn’s round tummy under her dress, and the golden-furred tail she has wrapped around the underside, with an empathetic smile. She takes both of them—well, all _three_ of them—home.

Artie struggles to find someone who’s ready to rearrange their home to accommodate his specific needs. But he finds his family with a bright, chatty young woman who tears up at the sight of his wheelchair, kneels down and introduces herself with a sniffly, “Hi, I’m Tina,” and asks to take him home on the spot.

And then, there are two.

Kurt and Mercedes are not difficult, or “picky,” as Will suggests. They’re just _particular_ , the term Emma had chosen after yet another promise that she would find the right people for their tastes. “I understand particular,” she says. “I will find your perfect matches, I swear.”

They’ve met with lots of possible candidates, but none have felt right. Either the visitors decide against them, or vice versa, every time. But really, Kurt thinks, what is he supposed to do? A subpar companion is worse than staying at the rescue facility, and he knows he isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. He is who he is, and either it’s a match or it isn’t.

The loud, blonde woman is charming at first, and immediately delighted with him, but when she squeezes his nose and honks at him and Kurt realizes she reeks of wine and not an unfortunate perfume, he isn’t so interested. The smarmy rich boy with the horse teeth and the meerkat face is definitely a no, and Emma cuts their meeting short once she notices that Kurt’s ears are lying flat on his head, his whiskers are twitching, and his tail has started swishing dangerously behind him. Kurt loves the next woman who comes in to meet him, another energetic, hyper-friendly blonde, but halfway through their meeting, Miss Holliday realizes she’s “not really interested in something this permanent” and all but runs from the facility.

The sweet British man who follows is nice, wonderful, really, but… he isn’t quite what Kurt’s looking for either.

“Then what are you looking for?” Will asks, groaning in frustration as the man glances back at Kurt with a sad smile on his way out.

Kurt doesn’t know. He hasn’t met it yet.

“We’ll find them, Kurt,” Mercedes says one afternoon. “Or they’ll find us, I guess.”

Her voice vibrates against Kurt’s head where he has it tucked against her stomach. They’ve been napping on-and-off together in the sunspots by the windows of the main visiting room. It’s been a few weeks since Kurt’s last visit, and Kurt is finally starting to think that he won’t be going home with anyone. But it’s fine. Whatever. He doesn’t need anyone, anyway.

“You will,” Kurt sighs, curling closer to her. “You get way more visitors than me.”

“Oh, hush.” Mercedes closes her eyes and starts kneading Kurt’s back with one hand. “Let’s go back to sleep.”

“Fine by me.”

Then there’s a quick patter of feet across the room, and Emma, slightly out of breath, calls, “Mercedes! I have a visitor for you!”

“What’d I tell you?” Kurt mutters. His ears flick in annoyance as he scoots away from Mercedes to let her get up.

“You too, Kurt!” Emma’s huge eyes are wide in her excitement. “They came in together, but they’re each looking for a hybrid companion. I really think these guys could be your matches.”

Kurt looks up at Emma dubiously.

“Really,” she says. “We’ve done the background checks, the pre-interviews, the face-to-face interviews, and they’re lovely people. When they saw your photos, they were very excited to meet you.”

Kurt and Mercedes agree to meet the new candidates, but Kurt doesn’t dare let himself get too excited right away. He’s had so much disappointment and this isn’t the first time Emma’s thought she found the right people. He glances over at Mercedes, who has already started walking towards the low-slung meeting tables. She sits on the cushion—more comfortable, relaxed seating for hybrids—and smooths the black fur of her tail. “Come on, Kurt! Don’t write yours off before you meet him. Stay open, okay?”

She has so much more faith than he does. She always has. And she’s right about this, Kurt knows that. Every visitor is different, just as every hybrid is different.

He stretches in his sunspot with a little mewl, stands, and goes to his table.

Emma brings in the first visitor. “Mercedes, this is Sam.”

Kurt fights down a spike of envy as Mercedes’ ears perk straight up on her head. Sam is gorgeous, and he’s already got a huge—really, truly huge—smile on his face as he strides towards Mercedes’ table. He drops down on the cushion across from her and says, “Hi! Awesome to meet you, Mercedes.”

Mercedes grins, though she keeps it small, not giving him too much right away, and replies, “Nice to meet you, Sam.”

Ugh. Of course Mercedes would luck out like this. What are the chances of there being two of _him_ in the world? Kurt braces himself for whatever mediocre person is about to come through the door next, straightening his back and placing his hands together on the low table, when—

“Kurt, this is Blaine.”

Sweet merciful crap.

The room brightens when Blaine walks into it. Kurt realizes this is probably because his eyes have probably gone massive at the sight of this person, but when Blaine smiles, walking slowly, tentatively towards him, Kurt is convinced that he is the source of all this extra light. As he gets closer, Kurt takes a deep breath, then shivers; holy hell, Blaine smells _so good,_ he is the best-smelling human Kurt has ever encountered, he’s sure of it. Kurt feels his tail starting to whip excitedly behind him, so he takes it in his hands and wraps it around himself to contain it.

“Kurt.” Blaine sits carefully on his cushion and looks up at him with huge amber eyes, giving Kurt a polite once-over that turns sweet and awed the longer he looks at him. “Your picture doesn’t do you justice, as great a picture as it is,” Blaine says softly, his cheeks going a little pink on either side of his shy smile. “And I love the colors in your tail, it’s so glossy,” he adds, nodding towards the deep chestnut and tawny browns in the fur.

Kurt preens a little—he takes a lot of pride in his fur, and good care of it to match. And Blaine noticed. “Thank you. Um, your hair is… well it's glossy too, but that might be because you have entirely too much stuff in it.”

Blaine lets out a startled laugh at Kurt's blunt honesty, even as Kurt berates himself in his head— _that's the kind of thing that gets you rejected, cool it… But he's not the one if he doesn't like you, anyway. Keep it together, Kurt, don't settle..._

“You may be right, but it's either this or a frizzy mess. So… would you like to tell me about yourself, or should I go first?”

“You first,” Kurt answers, relieved that Blaine hasn’t taken offense, biting his lip and inadvertently putting his sharp canines on display.

Blaine grins, his eyes flicking down to the little teeth, then says, ”Well, I go to NYU, as a music composition major at Tisch…”

After twenty minutes, Kurt realizes that he doesn't need there to be another Sam in the world, because there is a _Blaine_. They have so much in common, for Blaine to be a well-off, private-school boy and for Kurt to have a standard hybrid education. Their shared passion for music almost derails the rest of the conversation entirely, and Kurt can't stop his tail from flicking out of his hands and swinging back and forth behind him when Blaine compliments Kurt's Alexander Wang sweater by name and mentions his interest in fashion (as if it weren't obvious from that remark alone). Plus, their goals for a possible adoption align, both looking for companions and a way to make a real home, no matter what nature those relationships take.

(Though, when Blaine casually confirms Kurt's instinct that he's gay, Kurt can't stop the pleased little chirping noise he makes. The way Blaine tilts his head and looks at Kurt through his long, pretty eyelashes tells him that the potential of their situation is something they agree on as well.)

Blaine shuffles closer on his cushion. “Kurt, would it be okay if I pet you?”

Kurt glances over at Mercedes, who has her eyes closed and her head pressed up against Sam’s hand. She's leaning forward a little over the table and he's rubbing one of her ears between his fingers.

Blaine looks so hopeful, one of his hands resting in mid-air between them. Kurt nods, his cheeks heating a little as he scoots a little closer and says, “Thank you for asking first. I… I like petting, sometimes, but when you're a hybrid, people think they can touch you whenever they want.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Your body is your body, and I don't want to do anything to make you uncomfortable.”

Oh god, he’s so… _good_. Kurt wants this one so bad. He’s not sure he’ll be able to deal with it if Blaine doesn’t work out. He leans forward and waits, and then Blaine's hand is sliding through Kurt’s thick brown hair to get to the base of his ears. His fingertips are a little calloused, but his touch is gentle and the pressure feels so good that Kurt hums and leans into it. Being petted has never felt like this.

Blaine eventually starts to move his hand towards Kurt's neck, scratching and rubbing the entire way down, until he gets under Kurt's chin and starts scratching underneath Kurt’s jaw.

_Oh._

Kurt’s purr is a quiet little rumble for only a moment before it erupts from somewhere deep in his diaphragm, loud and low and incessant as he stretches out his neck and tilts his head back. No one has ever petted him in this spot, or made him purr, but this petting feels—oh god, _Blaine_ feels so good. Before he can stop himself, Kurt suddenly stretches out from head to toe, dropping his torso to the table with a loud thump and rolling onto his side so that his neck is on display for Blaine’s touch. He's purring so hard that the table’s vibrating underneath him.

Blaine laughs, then coos, and Mercedes and Sam both gasp—and the sounds snap Kurt out of it.

He sits up and rolls back over, crawling backwards away from the table with his face burning and his whiskers bristling in shame. Mercedes is looking over at him with her eyebrows raised high and her mouth twisted into a knowing little smile. Kurt's face gets impossibly hotter. Mercedes knows how selective he is about petting, she knows he's never reacted like that to anyone, even if Blaine doesn't, and—oh god, this is humiliating, everything was going so well until Kurt lost control and made a dog of himself—Blaine won't want some idiot cat who can't even keep himself together when he first meets someone new—but not every someone is Blaine—but now he’ll be rejected, again—

Kurt mewls, quiet and so embarrassed, and moves to stand from the table.

“Wait, it’s okay, don't go!” Blaine gets up on his knees and grabs Kurt's wrist. “I hope this isn't too forward, please stop me if I'm touching you too much, but… I think you're adorable. You're perfect. I love that I could make you feel good and I don’t want you to be embarrassed for showing it.”

Kurt doesn't move any farther away, or try to pull his wrist away. He takes a deep breath in an effort to calm down, and asks, “I didn't freak you out?”

“Not at all. I'm glad I didn't freak you out.” Blaine gives him a self-deprecating little shrug. “I… I didn't, right?”

“Not at all,” Kurt laughs, sitting back down on his cushion. His relief is palpable.

Emma walks back into the visiting area with a cheerful little spring in her step, Will following behind her and glancing hopefully at the four of them. “Okay, that's thirty minutes! How is everyone feeling?”

“He’ll work,” Mercedes grins, eyeing Sam with a coy grin.

He puts on a droll voice like Garfield the cat and says, “I hope you like lasagna,” at which Mercedes bursts out laughing and leans closer.

“Kurt?”

Kurt raises an eyebrow at Blaine. “What color is your apartment? I’ll need to find a matching hybrid bed and I can't have some weird shade of yellow clashing with my skin.”

Blaine reaches over to take Kurt's hand. “It's green, Kurt. I think my home will look great on you, if you want it.”

“Our home,” Kurt corrects him, leaning in and rubbing his cheek against Blaine’s for one quick moment before he pulls back, blushing. Blaine just squeezes his hand and beams at him.

“It's a match? For all of you, it's a match?” Will and Emma are both bouncing on their toes, barely able to believe it.

Kurt meets eyes with Blaine and just _purrs_.

Emma squeals and starts rattling off information, pulling papers from the folders clutched in her hands, and she lays two sets of forms in front of them—hybrid-owner registration and companion adoption paperwork for Blaine and Sam, and adoption consent statements for Kurt and Mercedes. All four sign the forms as quickly as they can, almost too excited to be legible. While Sam and Blaine are finishing up, Mercedes leans over and whispers, “They're besties too, Kurt! It's almost like we're going to the same home.”

“I see a lot of double dates in our futures,” Kurt whispers back, grinning slyly at her.

“You're a mess,” she giggles, returning to her table.

Will claps his hands together. “Well, it looks like everything's good to go! You can go home together in the morning, if you like, or—”

“Actually, if you're okay with it… Kurt, Mercedes, would you like to come home tonight?” Blaine asks. “I know Sam’s got his place all set, and so is mine. We didn't want to presume, but we were hopeful, we were—ever since we saw your files, we were really, really hopeful, and if you want—”

Kurt and Mercedes glance at each other, then back at Blaine and Sam, and while Mercedes runs up to Sam’s side and nuzzles against him, Kurt _leaps_ into Blaine’s arms and starts to purr again.

Everyone takes that as a yes.


End file.
